Archive for June, 2014

Commentators: a commentary

“That was only a yard away from being an inch-perfect pass.”
Murdo MacLeod

It’s the World Cup, and at PS Programmes Towers we are very excited by the drama and spectacle of the Beautiful Game. We don’t expect everyone to share our passion, but we had hoped that Phil Neville would be on our side. His ‘monotonous’ and ‘dreary’ style of commentary on the England vs Italy match prompted 445 complaints to the BBC. It was was his first ever live commentary, and he sounded like a hungover Monday morning. He was on much better form a couple of days later when Gary Linkear mentioned that the use of social media was getting fans closer to the players than ever before. Phil, with a huge grin on his face responded with ‘I used to love social media until 24 hours ago!’ Continue reading →

Losing the Script to Find the Audience

Speaking to a group of students, we were asked what qualities were necessary to be a writer. The library in which the event was taking place was intimidating: shelf after shelf of books from anthropology to Zoroastrianism, millions of minds contributing from antiquity to the latest Tweet. What connects them all? ‘You won’t be a writer,’ we agreed, ‘until you’re really comfortable with rejection.’ Continue reading →